‘One Battle After Another’ Projected to Lose $100 Million Theatrically as ‘Smashing Machine’ and Others Also Struggle Due to Oversized Budgets

Yeah, this budget wouldn’t even make sense in the DVD era.

Count me in on those who found it great, but it really isn't unexpected. The article puts it quite well:

Though the global haul of $140 million is impressive for a film that’s original, R rated and nearly three hours long, “One Battle” requires roughly $300 million to break even. That’s because Warner Bros. spent more than $130 million on production and $70 million on promotional efforts, and ticket sales are typically split 50-50 between studios and theater operators. Meanwhile DiCaprio typically gets first-dollar gross on his movies, meaning he gets a percentage of box office revenues before the studio recoups any costs.

From a boxoffice perspective this battle was lost based on the production cost alone for this type of movie. I guess they were hoping for "The Reveant" numbers, but that was a long shot in todays market.

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That said i am glad that it got made and with the success WB had this year they can certainly take the hit and still look back on a great year.

Lets hope it wins some awards, gets a small additional boost from that, and WB sees value in the artistic/prestige side, so movies like this continue to get made. Personally i think movies like this might have a longterm value for the overall content library of a service that is hard to put into numbers.